One of the concepts presented in the article, Communications in the Workplace, that resonated
with me was the aspect of active listening. With respect to the article, they define active listening
as a technique that an individual can utilize by receiving and decoding all the signals being
transmitted by the sender (Wien claw, 2021). This is done not only using listening to what the other
person is saying, but also through body language and nonverbal cues that are paired with the
verbal communication being relayed to the receiving end of the conversation. I have been a witness
to communication within my department that involved the use, or lack thereof, of active listening
during a meeting. My direct supervisor was explaining a process to another employee, and how he
would like it done moving forward--as the employee had done it incorrectly for several reporting
months. Considering I have known my supervisor for quite some time and have spent a lot of time
with him, I have been able to pick up on some of his nonverbal cues, etc. while actively listening to
him during meetings, interviews, presentations, etc. that the other newer employee has not had as
much experience with. My supervisor was explaining to the employee, in a polite and nice manner,
how the employee was completing the process incorrectly--all the while his arms were crossed and
his facial expressions exemplified a feeling of frustration towards the employee. However, the
employee failed to actively listen to my supervisor and did not pick up on the cues, so they did not
fully receive the message my supervisor was trying to imperatively display to them to hopefully
encourage them to be more mindful of the processes we have in place and the significance of
doing them correctly. I think the biggest barrier to communication factor illustrated in this scenario
is a different perception of the situation. The employee evaluated the message the sender
(supervisor) was trying to send prematurely, before all the information was relayed to the
employee (Wien claw, 2021). This created a differing perception of the situation as the employee
saw the discussion on a lower level of importance than that of my supervisor, and ultimately
resulted in poor communication between the two individuals as the employee simply only listened
to the nice and polite words without fully committing to the entire message the supervisor was
trying to send. It was interesting to read the article for this week. I appreciated how it reviewed in
detail the actual steps and flow of communication along with some of the issues that can occur
along the way. Some of the most interesting parts of the article to me were the parts that discussed
how communication has been changing with increased inclusion of technology in the workplace.
Specifically, I think it is interesting that more and more interpersonal communication is migrating
from face-to-face interactions to emails, texts, or IMs. Lately I have been trying to think more
actively about my daily communication activities, and I have noticed that there seems to be a
significant generational divide in how people communicate. For example, to a young person in the
workplace certain abbreviations and shorthand may come across differently than they would to an
older peer. I used to have an older boss who would typically respond to information I sent him with
"K." - this was really frustrating for me because my boss was just using this shorthand to be
efficient but for my generation this type of abbreviation is typically used when the other party is
frustrated or upset. The issue of tone in digital nonverbal communications has become one of
specific importance to me because it can cause problems without any ill intent on behalf of the
sending or receiving parties. I always try to use punctuation and emojis to help convey my tone and
have recently begun striving to accomplish more communications face to face of via video call
when possible because body language and voice are such important sources of additional
information in any conversation.
References
Wien claw, R. A. (2021). Communications in the Workplace. Salem Press Encyclopaedia.
